Jim, I like this variation on a classic view. I do find though that on my monitor the brighter cloud in the upper left of the frame grabs my focus first, and I struggle to focus back to the feature waterfall. Possibly a little more of a tweak will complete this nice capture.
I agree with Ian's comment as well. Also, this leaves a very strange HDR/too much shadow-recovery taste in my mouth. I'd really consider working on this one further, because I think it could be seriously spectacular. It's just not quite there yet imho.
A very compelling image, though I do _think_that I'm seeing perhaps a significant amount of post processing that is creating a foreground that seems a bit unreal?
This could almost be two images. On the left the 2 trees in the lower left quadrant and the bright cloud above might make a nice comp., while the right side with the waterfall and bright spot to the left make another nice scene. Otherwise my eye jumps around looking for a dominant point of interest.
Wow...an absolutely amazing capture. I do unfortunately agree with Ian, that the upper left cloud is a little bright and jumps out and grabs your attention. Aside from that I think that this is a gorgeous shot and it should be printed BIG!
Thanks everyone for their comments. Interesting shot, lots going on in it. Downloading it to the web darkened the shadows quite a bit. Not sure why. The highlights seem brighter as a result. In any case, this was a one exposure shot, no HDR, no shadow/highlight adjustment. Soft GND filters used to bring the DR within the limits of the camera.
The sun was going down and illuminated those three clouds particularly for some reason. They are the intended focal point. The waterfall on the right was in shadow. There was quite a bit of lightening and darkening in different areas, perhaps I lightened the water fall and surrounding rock too much. However, like I mentioned the web picture is quite a bit darker as compared to the "original" jpeg that got downloaded.
This has some amazing atmospherics, the swirling clouds and mist are really compelling. This is probably one of the most engaging images from this view I've seen. I see what the others are saying with the 'HDR' look - the contrasts look a little funny here and there, but not 'bad'. I think the area that bothers me most are the clouds by El Cap - not the bright ones but the grays ones, which I think might look better if they were a little brighter? I'm thinking maybe the grad filter made them darker? Anyhow, a super image!
A very dramatic and dynamic image. I'm with Henry in wishing to see a color version. In any event a fine image. I'm sure it will make an excellent large print.
I agree with Hugh's words, dramatic and dynamic. An ocean of clouds partly revealing slopes, cracks, cliffs, all defined by strong and fractured lines, as if this was viewed when this valley formed between the newly born mountains.
I would bring down the waterfall's brightness some (there doesn't appear to be any direct sun light hitting that particular spot), as of now it looks a little bit unrealistically white. This would insure that the small and bright clouds towards the top left side of the image remain the main focal point, with no other bright subject competing for it.
Wow! What an ethereal scene! Beautiful catch, Jim.
The brighter clouds on the left don't bother me at all. The falls' brightness is the only thing I'd suggest toning down, a little bit.
Wonderful atmospherics!!
Thanks again for all the comments. I was wondering why the shadows appear so much darker on the web. I often download jpegs to a web storage site and at work copy them to my computer. I've always noticed that the shadows appear darker and the highlights brighter on my monitor there. Just a standard 19" dell. I always thought it was the monitor.
On this one, I reduced the web page window for FM so that only the picture showed on my main moniter. Then opened PS and brought up the picture from the hard drive and placed it beside the web picture. The shadows are 1/2 to a full stop darker and the highlights are brighter in the web rendition on the FM board. Then I right clicked on the web picture and opened a new document in PS and pasted the web photo in the new document. Then put it on the same monitor as the other two pictures. Result was that the two out of photoshop look exactly the same....lighter shadows/highlights not as bright.
Will make me look differently at pictures from the web in the future.
There could be several things going on relative to your "different on the web" and "different on different computers" issues.
1. If both of your monitors are not properly profiled the image will, indeed, not look the same on the two of them. Even profiling won't totally solve this if one of the monitors is a lot darker than the other.
2. Some browsers are "color managed" (Safari and, if you set it up right, Firefox) while others are not (IE). If you use a non-generic color space on your uploaded files they will look correct in color managed browsers but not look correct on the non-color managed browsers.
3. Safest thing is to save in the generic sRGB color space when you create your jpgs.
There are several ways to do the conversion. My approach goes more or less like this:
1. Finalize the full 16-bit PS image including sharpening in smart layers and save.
2. Make a duplicate of the entire photo in PS and then close the original.
3. Flatten the duplicate image.
4. Resize the duplicate image for the web.
5. Do an unsharp mask or (rough default) 25,1,1 settings.
6. Add any branding to the image (e.g. - border, copyright info, other text) and flatten again.
7. Use Edit --> Convert to Profile... to convert to the generic sRGB color space.
8. Convert to 8-bit.
9. Save as... to save a jpg on my disk. (I typically go for a quality setting of about 8 in PS here.)
10. Upload.
In the end, you cannot completely control the appearance of your photographs on the web. You can use good practice (use profiled monitors as you do your work, convert to sRGB, etc.) but you still cannot control the setup on users' computers.
By the way, on my profiled monitors the shadow areas look quite bright - and are part of my reaction to the photo as seeming perhaps somewhat unnaturally bright, especially in the foreground forest area. (I'm a California photographer who has been going to the Sierra for decades, so I'm pretty familiar with this view and the issues of photographing it.)
